Germanic Picture of the Day

[Dagna]

I thought this would be interesting and fun to do: post a picture, anything about Germanics, whether a map, a reconstruction, a painting, a piece of clothing, etc. per day, followed by a short description.

So, here goes.



Reconstruction of a Germanic shoe of the 2nd Century, find from a bog near Hannover, Germany

(Photographed at Deutsches Ledermuseum Offenbach, Germany)



N.B. Some of the posts have been deleted as the links to pictures became invalid. Should you wish to contribute to this thread, make sure to choose pictures from stable sources (such as Wikipedia, etc.) or simply upload them as attachments or, alternatively, to our gallery and use [IMG] tags to insert them in your posts.

[Dagna]

Þorgnýr the Lawspeaker showing the power of his office to the king of Sweden at Gamla Uppsala, 1018. The lawspeaker forced king Olof Skötkonung not only to accept peace with his enemy, king Olaf the Stout of Norway, but also to give his daughter to him in marriage. Illustration by C. Krogh.

[The Lawspeaker]

Adoration of the Mystic Lamb (or in Flemish/Dutch: Het Lam Gods), a 15th century altarpiece in the Saint Bavo Cathedral in Ghent, Belgium.
By Jan van Eyck and his older brother Hubert.

More detailed pictures and information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghent_Altarpiece

[The Lawspeaker]

A dolmen close to the village of Garderen (prov. of Drenthe, the Netherlands).
Dolmens were often build as tombs in the form of a barrow.
Most date from between 4000 and 3000 BC, and there are still quite a lot of them left in the Netherlands and surrouding countries. Esspecially Drenthe is well known for it's hunebedden (plural, Dutch : dolmen)

[Oswiu]

A dolmen close to the village of Garderen (prov. of Drenthe, the Netherlands).
Dolmens were often build as tombs in the form of a barrow.
Most date from between 4000 and 3000 BC, and there are still quite a lot of them left in the Netherlands and surrouding countries. Esspecially Drenthe is well known for it's hunebedden (plural, Dutch : dolmen)

I normally feel a bit awkward about posting something from my country's preGermanic past here, but I thank you for doing it now!

For one thing, these old Megaliths have a history that didn't stop as soon as the people living around them learnt new languages and forgot what they were originally called and what they were for. How Germanics and Germanicised natives began to view these ancient structures is an integral part of the Germanic story, and so it's good to see how this occured in another country, in this case the Netherlands.

What especially caught my eye was the term hunebedden. Does it mean Beds (i.e. a kenning for Graves) of the Huns? Or does it translate otherwise? I once amused an acquaintance with the etymology of her surname Hounsome, i.e. Hunewald's Homestead, and wonder if modern Dutch can enlighten me as to the meaning of the first element here.

In return, here is one of our English barrows:

The folklore around this one is especially relevant:

Wayland's Smithy is one of the most impressive and atmospheric Neolithic burial chambers in Britain. Somehow this ancient grave became associated with Wayland, the Saxon god of metalworking, from whom it takes its name.

See here:
http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/m...ds_smithy.html

[The Lawspeaker]

Béguinage of Breda (the Netherlands)

A béguinage (begijnhof in Dutch/Flemish), is a collection of houses around a courtyard and a communal garden and surrounded by a wall that were build during the Middle Ages by Beguines (begijnen in Dutch/Flemish) by rich benefactors for this lay organisation of women that comprised mostly of victims of war and the elderly. The first of these begijnhoven were build during the 13th century and the movement started spreading over time.
Allthough béguinages are a typical cultural religious expression of the lowlands some are abroad as well: mostly in northern France, coastal Britain (very rare) and north-west Germany.

A béguinage and the courtyard dwellings that were build during the same era (and untill the 1800's) for poor citizens can be seen as the first form of social housing.
Most of the béguinages in the Netherlands were purged of catholics when the Netherlands gained independence from Spain during the Eighty Years War and were forced into becoming social housing for the poor, orphanages and such. The béguinages were lucky exceptions to that rule.

What especially caught my eye was the term hunebedden. Does it mean Beds (i.e. a kenning for Graves) of the Huns? Or does it translate otherwise? I once amused an acquaintance with the etymology of her surname Hounsome, i.e. Hunewald's Homestead, and wonder if modern Dutch can enlighten me as to the meaning of the first element here.

According to the Dutch wikipedia the word hune- (which is not a regular Dutch word) is derived from the Germanic word (in a extinct dialect) Huyne (giants) and has nothing to do with the Huns, a common misconception in the Netherlands.
So a literal translation would lead to giants- bed (bed of a giant).
Which of course it's due to it's shape.

[The Lawspeaker]

Glass stained windows of the Saint John's Cathedral in 's Hertogenbosch (Den Bosch), Netherlands.

The proud Sint-Jan's Kathedraal has adorned the capital of the Dutch province of Noord Brabant since 1525 (construction had began in 1220, finished in 1340 but resumed shortly afterwards with a extention). It was originally build as a parish church but less then 30 years after finishing the construction (in 1559) it was consecrated as the cathedral and the seat of the Bishop.

In 1584, the original, more majestic tower, was consumed in a raging fire but the local population quickly set to rebuild the structure. In 1629, following the capture and occupation by the protestant Dutch, the proud cathedral was cofisquated and handed over to a protestant minority and it would take untill 1810 untill Napoleon would restore catholic occupation.


For some reason I have always loved churches and cathedrals, and esspecialy those abroad or in the south. The roman ones caried having spirituality in every single brick, the gothic ones with light in it, like if they were build out of lace rather then stone. Laugh when i say it, but they look to me like a poem in stone. And the Saint John is just of them, and perhaps not even the most beautiful.

A couple of links:

Wikipedia Saint John's Cathedral

Stiching Nationaal Monument Sint-Jan (Dutch)

[The Lawspeaker]

Tollund Man (Tollundmanden)- Denmark

The Tollund Man is the naturally mummified corpse of a man who lived during the 4th century BC, during the time period characterised in Scandinavia as the Pre-Roman Iron Age. He was buried in a peat bog on the Jutland Peninsula in Denmark, which preserved his body. Such a find is known as a bog body.Tollund Man is remarkable for the fact that his body, and in particular the face, was so well preserved that he seemed to have died only recently.

On Monday 8 May 1950, Viggo and Emil Højgaard from the small village of Tollund were cutting peat for their stove in the Bjældskovdal peat bog, 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) west of Silkeborg, Denmark. As they worked, they noticed in the peat layer a face so fresh that they could only assume that they had discovered a recent murder victim, and notified the police at Silkeborg. The police were baffled by the body, and in an attempt to identify the time of death, they brought in archaeology professor P. V. Glob. Glob determined that the body was over two thousand years old, most likely murdered, and thrown into the bog as a sacrifice to fertility goddesses. The corpse's organs were as well preserved as its exterior, allowing scientists an opportunity to study them carefully.

The body is displayed at the Silkeborg Museum in Denmark, though only the head is original. Conservation techniques for organic material were insufficiently advanced in the early 1950s for the entire body to be preserved. Consequently, only the head was conserved – the rest of the body was not. As displayed today, the original head is attached to a replica of the body.

Source: Tollund Man (wikipedia)

Note: other bog bodies have been found as well. Like Lindow Man (Britain), Grauballe Man (Denmark), Yde Girl (the Netherlands)


Sorry.. that I was not in the mood of writing an article myself this time. Perhaps next time

[Aragorn]

My picture of the day:

the Externsteine

[Dagna]

Alemannic or Bavarian brooches (Zierscheiben) incorporating a swastika symbol at the center with a varying number of rays .

Left image: from a grave field called "Bachkramer" between St. Christoph and Steinhöring Haag museum

Right image: Bronze zierscheiben from 6-8 century A.D from Fützen (Blumberg) Durchmesser, diameter 8 cm